Over the years, the slow progress of Bill & Ted 3 has been blamed on everything from word getting out too early to high CG costs to an unspecified “darkness.” But now, Keanu Reeves has offered a concrete reason why the film hasn’t happened yet. As with so many other things in show business, it turns out, it comes down to money. Hit the jump to read the Keanu Reeves Bill and Ted 3 update.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a big update on Bill & Ted 3, but Alex Winter — you may know him as Bill Preston, Esq. — wants you to know the project is still very much alive. He offered a status update in a recent interview, as well as some details about the Bill and Ted 3 plot. Hit the jump to see what he had to say.

Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter have been talking about a third Bill & Ted for years, and over the past few years we’ve watched the project slowly move ahead. Winter announced that the script was completed in 2011, and Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest) was hired to direct in 2012. But over a year later, production still hasn’t gotten underway, and now Reeves has an explanation as to why.

In a new interview, the actor explained that “darkness” was holding up the project. It’s a much more mysterious answer than the one Winter gave when asked a similar question earlier this year. Hit the jump to read Reeves’s quote.

If the idea of a Taxi Driver 2sounds stupid to you, know that Paul Schrader agrees. As a matter of fact, he thinks the concept pitched to him by Robert De Niro in the ’90s was “the dumbest idea that I’ve ever heard.” Also after the jump: